The Legitimate Mughal Road
Jammu and Kashmir National Conference on Saturday asserted that the incumbent governor administration and Government of India (GoI) have miserably failed to upkeep the sole highway connecting Kashmir with rest of the country, saying that the need of hour is to make other routes connecting Kashmir with rest of country fully functional.
In a statement the party general secretary Haji Ali Muhammad Sagar said that it was an embarrassment that even after seventy three years of independence no headway has been made to connect the valley of Kashmir with the rest of country through an all-weather road.
“Even a drizzle of rain detaches the valley with the rest of the country. The GoI and the incumbent administration with all their men and machinery have miserably failed to upkeep the important stretch of road connecting Jammu to Srinagar. It seems that the government has given up before the vagaries of weather,” he said.
Sagar said at a time when the world has embarked on the mission of easier intercontinental connectivity, our people in this part of the world still hanker of basic edibles during intermittent highway blockages.
“It was after fifty hours of blockage that the sole highway connecting Kashmir with the rest of the country was thrown open for traffic on Friday night following landslides in district Ramban. The blockage has resulted in the ruin of various perishable items, and other edibles including livestock. The traders continue to be at the receiving end of all this. Not just that such intermittent round the year blockages create shortage of essential items in the valley,” he said.
Sagar said there has been no headway on other road projects connecting Jammu to Srinagar. “The need of the hour was to upgrade the Mughal Road so that it could act as parallel link to Kashmir, but to our dismay nothing was done in this direction also. The incumbent governor administration and the former BJP-PDP government miserably failed to develop Mughal road as an all-weather route. The idea of having a tunnel on the Mughal Road was also brushed under carpet,” he said.
Due to frequent suspension of traffic on Jammu-Srinagar highway, the vehicles had taken the route of Mughal road to reach Kashmir but there also the government has failed to ensure a steady movement of traffic, the NC general secretary said.
He said government has established only one checking point on Mughal road, which obviously is not enough to deal with the scope of work. There also one sees a beeline of trucks and other light vehicles waiting for their turn to cross the check point, he added.
Sagar said that the incumbent governor administration is slumbering and had shut its eyes and ears to the mounting woes of people in the wake of intermittent highway closures.
“I take this opportunity and urge both the GoI and the incumbent state administration to ensure steady vehicular movement on the sole highway connecting Srinagar to Jammu. It is expected of the government to upkeep the highways, and initiate time bound work on other routes connecting Kashmir to other parts of the country,” he said.
He also urged the incumbent administration to established sufficient checking points on the Mughal Road in order to avoid stranding of vehicles. (GNS)
